Probably everyone has seen the 80's
movie "The Karate Kid" starring Ralph Machio and the late great Pat Morita.
Though the sequels all stunk, the first film caught the imagination of American
audiences who are normally apathetic to martial art movies in a whole new way.

For those of you who somehow missed out
on seeing this, in a nutshell the story is about a teenager who gets his butt
kicked by a gang from an evil martial arts studio. He then discovers a secret Karate
master living next door who teaches him how to kick butt and get revenge.

Yeah, OK, it's not a lot on paper maybe
but people ate it up in the day!

One of the reasons I think it played so
well was not so much the revenge or the martial arts aspects, but instead the
fantasy of the secret master. Who wouldn't like that, right? Some
guy who's going to make you train when it's time to train, do all these things
to strengthen your technique, and build you into a fighting machine.

While these kinds of secret masters are
out there in the world the odds of this kind of fantasy becoming reality for
most people is pretty dog gone low. I don't think that should be any
shock.

But each of us possesses an 'inner
master' who can do all these things if we will only let them.

Another name for this inner master could be 'self discipline', but it's not as
easy to imagine an abstract idea like discipline as much as imagining a person,
right? So let this part of your personality have an identity who will kick
'you' (your conscious self) into training.

If it helps to imagine a teacher you've
physically trained with as your mental coach that's great. It'll be easier
to remember how they sound and look than constructing something new in your
mind. But even a fictional character you identify with (such as Yoda) could
work if that's a strong enough image for you.

Now, if this sounds like a bunch of crap
I can't blame you for thinking that. On the surface it sounds like
something that might work for children or gullible people but not sophisticated
adults. Wrong. It can work for anyone who lets it and to the
exact degree to which they let it!

By this I mean the more you just relax
and have fun creating this mental construct and interacting with 'them', the
better this technique will work for you. Like doing kicks. You don't
do the front kick one time and then say "OK, I've learned the front kick, I
don't need to do it any more." You don't lift a weight one time and then
throw it away. The more you do it, the better you get at it, pretty
simple.

These kinds of trans-cognitive
techniques allow for accessing useful information and mental states (such as
'the desire to go work out') which can not as easily be brought about through
direct willpower.

As a personal example, sometimes it's
really cold out and I know the metal weights will be freezing or I'm just tired and I don't want to go and workout. Pretty
common right? Everyone has those days.

So, I just imagine some of my teachers
from over the years. Men like Jim Keating and Professor Presas. Even
just to mentally 'stand in their presence' for a few moments fills me with the desire to go train.
Let alone to hear Professor's voice telling me "Peter, it is time to go and train!
Come on, let's go."

(I can barely sit here and type without
getting up and doing some Arnis in the office just thinking of it casually
now!)

Probably each of you has a teacher like this from
some point in your life who inspired you to become great at the martial arts.
That's why you're reading this and trying to get better and better each day.
Remember that teacher, how it felt to train with them, the sound of their voice
and so on to use as inspiration
now to take you further down your path to mastery.